Just add oil to your colors to create a marbleized effect on your Easter eggs.

Want some fun with your colored Easter eggs with what you have in your kitchen cabinet? All you need is food coloring, vinegar, vegetable oil and hot water. (I bought the kit because I was enticed by the marbleizing and turns out it’s just adding oil.)

You probably know the basic recipe: Mix a teaspoon or more of vinegar with hot water and drops of food coloring in a mug. Now the marbleizing. The directions I read said 3 tablespoons of oil, but you don’t need that much — a teaspoon will do. Add the oil to the cup and stir. Drop in the egg and move it around for 10-30 seconds depending on the color. Let dry. Important to let dry. Then repeat after the egg is dried, until you are satisfied.

I colored some solid first, then I let them dry. Then I started marbleizing. It’s fun and it won’t cost you a coloring kit.

OH, I didn’t want to toss the oily water down my kitchen drain, so I just tossed it on some weeds.

I’ve always heard different stories on the best way to hard-cook an egg and whether it matters how long you boil it up here at 5,280 feet.

It seems I’ve always managed to cook them a little bit too long, getting that horrid sulfurous green rime around the edge of the yolks — that is, until this batch, which I peeled and pickled with a can of beets, using this recipe. The lessons I learned apply if you’re peeling those eggs for an egg salad or deviled eggs for Easter brunch. If you’re only going to dye them and not eat them, it doesn’t matter so much.

They came out so fancy and pretty that I had to know what I did right. So I consulted Food Editor emeritus Tucker Shaw, and learned this: Hard-boiled is a misnomer. You can’t let them boil.

Not only (this is the last) will the place feel like some Platonic ideal of spring, with a blossom-heavy interior and blossom-thick grounds (it’s an inn on a semi-rural setting, between Boulder and Lyons). But they are holding the brunch all day, from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.

It’s not cheap – $35 with champagne, $28 without – but “cheap” and “Easter brunch” aren’t exactly close relatives.

The time has come! For this year’s contest, we are asking for dioramas and sculptures. Get some Peeps, and get creative: Think about what’s happening in politics, movies, music or even in your neighborhood.

How to enter: Take a digital photo of your creation, and upload it at youpost.denverpost.com/submit-your-photos. In the “description of your photo” field, include the title of your piece, your full name, age and mailing address.

Deadline: Midnight Friday, March 16. Winners will appear in the April 4 Food section, and all entries will appear online at denverpost.com. First and second place for adults, and first and second place for children up to age 12 will be awarded Peeps & Co. gift baskets, provided by Just Born, the maker of Peeps.

Rande Johnson and Carol Epps won The Denver Post’s 2011 Peeps Contest with this diorama, which captured the details of the underground room with tiny torches, picks and shovels, and the rescue scene above, complete with a miniature ambulance and awaiting mistress.

The friends and former co-workers at Land Title Guarantee Co. said they laughed themselves silly adding details like the Elvis poster and the sunglasses the miners wore as they came to the surface. When asked what she plans to do with the diorama now, Epps says she and Johnson plan to “encase it in glass and preserve it for all time.”

This year, we are asking for Peeps dioramas and sculptures. Get some Peeps and get creative: Think about what’s happening in politics, movies, music or even in your neighborhood.